A Darker Day
by carriesagun
Summary: When people start to be murdered in Eterna City, forensic science specialist Elise Coleman is called in to help solve the crimes with the help of the local Officer Jenny. What she uncovers could end the world, or her life. Think CSI meets Pokémon, OC, D/P
1. Chapter 1

I was used to crime scenes being busy with other people and their pokémon milling around. There was always far more people at crime scenes than was totally necessary, though they had learnt from several ear-bashing's that walking on the crime scene was the biggest no-no in the book. I also was used to kneeling beside bodies and picking up evidence, mentally denying what my eyes were seeing, and compartmentalising the visions.

_Do you think it was murder? _I turned my head to my Gardevoir, who had spoken telepathically to me, shrugged, and she made a small sound that I knew was a giggle. She, like myself, had a strange sense of humour, but I loved her anyway. I peeled my gloves off, chucked them in the nearest bio-hazard bag, and went to Officer Jenny who was guarding the scene. The other officers were keeping a reasonable distance from the body, but they still kept flashing their lights over the scene to get a good look. I would be having words about disrespecting the deceased, but only once this crime scene was finished with.

"Judging by the location of the body and the injuries sustained by the victim, I'd say you're looking for a professional hit-man," I told Jenny, and her frame seemed to crumple slightly at the diagnosis. We had had four other murders just like this in Eterna in the last ten days, and the strain was beginning to show on everybody. She looked worried and tired, and underlying these emotions was that helplessness that we all felt when murders kept happening. It had been a long week so far, and it was only going to get worse if these bodies kept turning up.

_You've done it now; there hasn't been a murder in Eterna Forest for a hundred years!_ I ignored Gardevoir's comment and waited for the officer to respond.

"I just don't understand it; he's a businessman, for one thing, what was he doing in here? It's hardly the most direct route from Floarama Town to Eterna, and anyway, mostly everyone has a Flying pokémon with them these days. What do you think?" she asked me, trying to make sense of the chaos that seemed to exude from these attacks. I shrugged again and rubbed my eyes; it had been a long day and Jenny was not the sort of person to bounce ideas off of at four in the morning.

"It seems like he was lured in here, judging by how close he is to the Eterna-side entrance. It's more common than you'd have thought, because when you need the money, sometimes you'll do anything - including hijacking businessmen. Was he carrying anything worth a lot of money?" I asked her, grabbing my notepad and jotting down some notes about the scene. I'd write them up when I got back home, but that could be hours yet.

"Not when I searched his pockets for an identification. I didn't find anything on him, besides a Pokétech and a half-dozen unused pokéballs," she told me, and I scribbled in my usual untidy handwriting. I wrote my notes in code, a code only I could understand, to maintain confidentiality and the chain of evidence of the case.

"Well, there's not a lot else I can do, until they come from the hospital to take him away," I concluded, and looked past her for a moment at the victim. He was flat on his back, arms and legs spreadeagled across the path through the forest, and to the casual eye, he would have looked asleep. We knew better; his body had familiar marks on it that told us he was poisoned by a Nidoran's Poison Point. He was the fifth person in the last week to died from this poison, and we were drawing a total blank on connecting the victims. "I think I'll head back home to write up my notes and try to catch up on some ground-work."

"What about sleep, Elise?" Jenny asked me, and I laughed.

"Sleep is for teenagers and Snorlax's, Jen, you know that," I replied, laughing still as I retrieved my bag and shoved my notepad forcefully into it. Jenny waved me off as I whipped out my Pokétech and dialled the lab. The night secretary answered, and I told him what had happened for the crime records, and reminded him that the press were to be kept firmly _out_ of the loop. He was a genial man who I had a lot of time for, and he knew his job like the back of his hand. It's always nice to work with a professional. "Jenny, I'll give you a call when the hospital tell me any news," I called into the dark, and the officer waved me away. I shrugged and returned Gardevoir to her pokéball, knowing she'd give me hell for it later. Pulling my bike free from the thorn bush it was entangled in, I hopped on board and pedalled off down the familiar road.

Eterna Forest, and Eterna City beyond, were not usually within my juristiction. However, in this particular case, I'd had to make an exception, when the scenes of crime officer for the Eterna district was counted among the dead men in the forest, and I was enjoying staying away from Sunnyshore City for a while. Generally, there was an officer in every town and a scenes of crime officer too, with a centralised laboratory in Veilstone City, though each scenes of crime officer had their own small laboratory in the town they were based. It was a good system, until something knocked out one of the scenes of crime officers, and then it caused problems.

Alex, the scenes of crime officer for Pastoria City, was covering my patch in Sunnyshore; he was one of the least busy members of the crime lab, so it made sense for him to take my area. He didn't like the distance he had to travel, but as I pointed out to him – it was either travel to Sunnyshore once or twice a week, or stay away from his family indefinately in Eterna. He agreed with me; Sunnyshore wasn't really that far from Pastoria.

I swerved to avoid a pothole in the road, cursing under my breath at the poor quality of the road surface, and straightened myself out to coast down the small hill onto the bridge just outside Eterna City. There was a pink hue on the furthest horizon, and I checked my watch; it was 5:06am. I was used to working strange hours, but I really was starting to dislike seeing dawn's with the alarming regularity offered to me at the moment.

There were a few fishermen on the bridge, and they waved or called a greeting as I cycled past, pedalling quickly to try and beat the dawn back to my little rented apartment. I pulled my bike up outside the Pokémart and dashed in to collect some supplies, paid and stuffed them into the basket on my bike before coasting a little down the incline to the front door of the apartment block.

I punched the code in and the door opened, allowing me to push my bike into the bike locks and hurry up the stairs, barely getting the door closed before the first brush of dawn came through the window. I laughed at my little game, then dropped my bag and opened my six pokéballs. My Gardevoir, Zangoose, Typhlosion, Swampert, Venusaur and, my newest addition, a Zapdos that I had had since he was a hatchling, leapt out of their balls and began to stretch. "You guys should be used to sitting in the pokéballs for hours on end," I told them with a smile, moving to the kitchenette to pour suitable food into the six bowls that were laid on the work surface, labelled with my pokémon's names.

_You try being in an enclosed space with five men to deal with_. I looked up and laughed at my Gardevoir, and she crossed her arms to show her displeasure. She'd forgive me when she saw that I'd bought them all a Rare Candy for when they'd eaten their main dinner.

"I do, if you remember. And I have to cope with you reading my mind," I replied to her outloud, and those that could understand me made noises I took for laughter. I finished with the food and put the bowls in suitable locations for them to be able to reach them without bother. Zapdos, as usual, was the big problem; his enormous wings meant that he had to perch on the back of the sofa to be able to reach into the bowl with his beak. But he seemed to happily tuck into the seeds and grain I had bought for him, and I laughed to see them all so blissfully happy with their meals.

I myself decided that I wanted an egg on toast, and set to work manufacturing such a meal with what I had in the cupboards and the fridge, trying to avoid being sprayed by Venusaur who was making such a mess with his meal, I knew I'd have to hoover before we could get some sleep.

_Have you decided what, or who, could have attacked the businessman? _Gardevoir asked me, and I shook my head and I folded my egg into my piece of toast. I needed to find a motive before I could start looking for who, and I had no idea where to start. I began shovelling my food into my mouth as I moved across the room to open the large balcony doors to let Zapdos out for a fly to stretch his wings out, and he let out a happy 'cawing' noise as he took off, cutting a gouge out of the balcony with a trailing claw. I laughed as I polished off my food and tapped my computer's power button to wake it up and try and make some headway on the case.

While it loaded, I cleaned everything up and sent all my pokémon off to their respective beds except Gardevoir, who refused to go to bed until I did. She was my oldest pokémon; as a beginning trainer, barely ten years old, my father had taught me how to catch myself a pokémon, and it had been a Ralts. Over the years, she'd evolved into my beautiful Gardevoir. At first, she'd been a little too forceful with her psychic abilities, one time even knocking me unconscious, but we had grown used to one another and were now inseparable.

My Zangoose had been just an egg when I'd found him at a crime scene – my first, in fact. There were over a dozen eggs that had been stolen from a professional breeder, and as a gift for returning them to her, she gave me the one I chose, which turned out to be Zangoose. Since then, we'd beaten all of the Sinnoh Gym's, and before Cynthia took over, we'd beaten the Elite Four once together with my Gardevoir.

Typhlosion, Swampert and Venusaur had been gifted to me by a man in my home town of Twinleaf, by the name of Professor Rowan to start me off on my journey through life. They had been their basic forms of Cyndaquil, Mudkip and Bulbasaur, but they had grown strong through the years we had spent together, and they, too, had helped me with the league in Sinnoh.

Zapdos, the most recent addition to my party, had come about as rather an accident. Someone had found a small, lifeless bird pokémon laying just beside a hatched egg, and when they had reached out to touch it, the bird had electrocuted them and nearly killed them. It was a Zapdos, and had I not taken him in, he would have been destroyed for being a danger to human society, even though as a hatchling he had little or no control over his electric powers.

The stories behind them was what made my pokémon my motley crew of friends, and, I mused, I wouldn't be without them – even Venusaur, who makes so much mess. My computer had finished loading up, and I sat down in front of it and got my notepad out of my bag. Before I could really get started, Zapdos returned from his flight and began tapping at the window pane to be let in. I obliged, and he hopped through the door to take up his perch in the back of the sofa, his eyes beginning to droop with sleep before he was fully settled.

I read through my encoded notes and began frantically typing them up into more readable English, making sure to include the notes Officer Jenny had given me. The notes were incomplete, and would be until a post mortem could be done on the body to give exact causes of death, and any hints as to what, why or who killed him off.

I knew the autopsy would come back with the same results as the last four; no marks on the body aside from one small puncture wound to the back of the left calf. High levels of Nidoran poison in the blood, cause of death would have been internal bleeding, caused by the poison. But, none of this helped me particularly much.

Nidoran were too common to accurately give us an identification of the assailant, and their poison was the same in every specimen. The only specific the poison could give us was whether the Nidoran was a Male or Female variety, and that had already been idetified as the male line of the Nidoran species. They had no idea whether it was a Nidoran, a Nidorino or a Nidoking, as their poison didn't change in its chemical characteristics as the species evolved, which meant that was a dead end.

I finished with my notes and turned to the registration database, which contained details of every single human being in Sinnoh – from their age and occupation, to their blood type and DNA. I drew up an old session which compared the previous four murder victims, and added in the latest victim's details, like his height, approximate age, eye colour, weight. I scanned through the list, accompanied by pictures, and stopped when I found the picture.

Name - Michael Anderson

Age – 37 Date of Birth - 19th January 1972

Occupation – Developer for Total Centre Electronics

Family – None

Education – University of Sinnoh, Chemical and Biochemical Engineering

I blinked at the screen and felt my head droop to the desk. I hated the fact that I couldn't find anything to link any of the victims and that-

My train of thought paused as I looked at the file again. I flicked to the other files, and suddenly I saw the link. All of them had graduated the same year from the same university, and all of them had studied a science, all of them had no family. I shook my head in disbelief that I had totally missed the obvious link between the victims, and I dialled Jenny's number quickly from memory.

"Hello? Elise, is that you?" She sounded half-asleep, but I knew she wouldn't have been to bed yet – the hospital were always slow in sending someone to collect dead bodies.

"Jenny! I found the link between the victims – they all studied science at Sinnoh, and graduated the same year," I told her, trying to contain the excitement in my voice.

"How did this get missed before?" she asked a little snappily, and I understood her impatience.

"The programme looks for patterns, it doesn't look for individual fields in the database. So, age, date of birth, place of birth and such like will get compared by the programme, but other fields, like graduating from Sinnoh the same year, are not compared by the programme," I explained, jotting a note down to rip someone at the programming department's head off later for their crappy programming.

"So, are there any other links?" Jenny asked me, and she sounded a little more pleased than she had done earlier.

"I need to do some more digging yet, and have a look at what they were working on, but I should be able to report back later today, tomorrow at the latest," I replied, and was already adding a to-do list to my notepad. "I'll probably have to leave Eterna to chase some of these leads, but I'll fly instead of cycling, so I shouldn't be gone too long," I finished, hoping she'd agree.

"Okay, Elise, that's fine. I'll speak to you later; try and go to bed, or else you'll be worthless tomorrow," Jenny warned, then hung up on me. I was used to her hanging up without saying goodbye, and replaced the handset on my own phone before hitting 'Print File' on the computer screen. While it printed out, I changed out of my work clothes into something more suited for sleeping and brushed my teeth, splashing water on my face and drying it quickly before jogging back to the printer. I pulled the files out, sorted them, and stapled them in their correct order and in their piles. I stacked them up, added my to-do list onto the top, turned off all the lights and closed the blinds then wandered into the bedroom.

I pulled the blackout blinds around the large windows, and was cocooned in the dark for a moment before my eyes adjusted to the light. The bed was still unmade as I had left it at midnight, but I jumped into it just the same and snuggled down into the duvet.

_You had better not snore all day_. I blew a raspberry at Gardevoir, who was laying on top of the duvet next to me, and I rolled onto my side so my back was facing her. _Very adult_, was the last thing I heard before sleep dragged me under.


	2. Chapter 2

I was woken rudely by my phone ringing. I opened one eye and peered at the offensive electrical, willing it to quiet down so I could get some more sleep. It didn't; it kept ringing, an obnoxious noise that shattered any hope of me getting back to sleep. "What?" I asked briskly as I answered, wanting to convey my displeasure at being woken up.

"Hi, Elise, it's Marcus from the hospital," came the voice at the other end. He was someone who understood being snappy when you were trying to sleep.

"Right, about the autopsy," I said, flopping back against the pillows and pulling the duvet up to my chin. Even if I wasn't asleep, I could at least be comfortable. "Any news?"

"Some, yes. It was the usual story with the cause of death; massive internal haemorrhaging induced by Nidoran poison," he told me, and must have heard the defeatist sigh I gave, because he then added, "But I did find chloroform in his bloodstream."

"You have my attention, doc," I replied, shooting out of bed and grabbing the nearest piece of paper and pen to jot things down on. "Were the levels high enough to have knocked him out?"

"No, only enough to incapacitate him. Less than 0.1 millimole per unit," he told me, and I calculated the concentration in my head. "He could have been unconscious for a few minutes, but no longer than that."

"Any idea on the mode of absorption?" He laughed, and I pouted – I did not like to be laughed at.

"Always the scientist, Elise. It was inhaled, we found fibres from a cloth in his throat that he must have inhaled at the time of ingestion of the chloroform, because they had the highest concentration of the drug on them." Marcus' thoroughness was one of his most redeeming features; most other pathologists would have ignored the trachea, instead looking for an injection point or other, more visible injuries. "He was also tied up, going by the ligature marks on his wrists. I found some trace in his watch strap and send it to the lab, so it's there waiting for you. It looks, if you ask me, like something grass or plant based, so test it against samples of things like Bulbasaur and his line."

"Right-o, will do. How about the puncture wound? Anything unusual there?" I asked, frantically scribbling down everything we came up with.

"Same as all the others, except there was no tearing around the wound so the victim didn't fight back, which supports the chloroform theory," he told me, and sounded like he'd run a race in his hurry to tell me every detail.

"I think that's enough to keep me busy, Marcus! Thanks again," I said, and he returned the thanks and hung up. I stared at the piece of paper I had written all over, trying to make some sense of the notes that were barely legible.

_Any news?_ Gardevoir's hand was on my arm, and I jumped a little at the sudden touch, staring a little wide-eyed at her in the half-light.

"A little, yeah. I think it's time to get up and go do some work," I told her and she nodded and gracefully stepped off of the bed and began to open the curtains.

I threw myself on the bed and stretched out, stretching all my joints out to ease the sleepy stiffness that had invaded them. At full stretch, my six-foot form reached the foot board of the bed, and when I stretched my arms out I stuck almost two feet off the end of the bed. I was always being told that I was too skinny, but it was difficult to have any sort of weight when you lived off one meal a day plus coffee and snacks and I was not bothered either way about my appearance. I was tolerable to look at, though the photo on my laboratory pass would tell you other wise, and I was always able to find clothes that fitted me and suited me, so I felt unable to comment either way.

I got up and finished stretching, pulling my back into alignment with a satisfying 'crunch' noise, then moved through the the en suite bathroom to use the toilet and assess my appearance, placing the notes on top of the toilet cistern. Nothing much had changed since the night before, though I had forgotten to take my make-up off and was, as such, vaguely resembling a Spinda with huge marks around my eyes. Gardevoir laughed at me, and I threw a towel at her and cranked the shower up.

The water was almost scalding hot, but between the hot water and the vigorous scrubbing I performed on my skin, thinking hard about the case. It was puzzling me, the way the MO, or _modus operandi_, of the murders had changed so rapidly. The victim before last had been snatched and killed within moments of each event, but there was evidence to suggest that this victim had been abducted and held for questioning.

My musings were cut severely short when Swampert decided that he, too, needed to have a shower, and stepped boldly into the bath and stopped, waiting for me to hose him down. I laughed and pulled the shower out of the holder to spray him down, and he returned the favour by dousing me with bubbles from his Bubblebeam attack. "No fair, your water is cold!" I scolded him, rinsing the last of the soap off my skin and turning the shower off before leaping out of the bath and grabbing a towel.

Once I was suitably dry and dressed, I set up food for my pokémon and allowed my computer to boot up at its own pace while I brewed some coffee and put some toast in the toaster. Before it was done I opened all of the blinds, and was greeted by another bright and sunny mid-spring day, complete with cawing Wingull. At least, for once, I'd get some form of breakfast, even if I would be working through when I should have been enjoying it.

When the computer was finished, I plonked myself down in front of it with my toast on a plate in my hand and began to query various databases about the victims so far. Everything I found that correlated with one of the other victims, I noted it down on my notepad until, within two hours, I had a fairly good picture of why these men were attacked.

Firstly, they were all working on projects that held a 'Top Secret' classification (easily by-passed by my international highest level security pass), and when I had a closer look at these projects, I realized they were all connected to the energy released when a pokémon evolved. The topics that were being investigated ranged from harnessing the energy to how it could be adequately converted into a more usable form of energy, such as electricity.

Secondly, each and every one of them had full security clearance into the top level projects at the companies they worked for. From this, I concluded that whoever had killed them had done so for this security clearance and for whatever it was that was so well hidden that their companies hadn't declared it's existence. The fact that there were such things so well hidden made me feel distinctly uncomfortable, but I knew that I could never find out what the secrets were.

The last, and most disturbing thing that I found out, was that all of the victims had ties to the disbanded Team Rocket vigilante group from a few years ago. When I read that piece of information, I felt my heart sink and the room seemed a little darker, like someone had put a dimmer switch on the sun. Team Rocket had been involved in many schemes including the theft of rare pokémon from trainers across the Kanto region.

I had been called into the case a little before the press got hold of the details, and it was one case that will always stay with me. The things they did to take the pokémon, up to and including murder of innocent people trying to protect their pokémon and the assault of countless people. Then, as suddenly as the problems with Team Rocket began, they seemed to disband of their own accord. Rumours went around the newspapers about some kid breaking up the notorious gang, others said that their leader, Giovanni, had been killed in a fire that destroyed his laboratory, but whatever the reason, there had been no further problems with Team Rocket.

I was so engrossed in my work that when the phone rang, I physically jumped in my chair and had to catch myself on the edge of the desk to prevent the wheeled chair from tipping over. My hand flew to the receiver, and I answered in a breathy voice. "H-hello?"

"Elise? Is that you?" I smiled at the familiarity of the masculine voice.

"Lance, of course it's me," I replied, and he laughed by response. I was used to Lance taking the piss out of me; it was a big brother thing, or so he told me, despite the fact that we were friends and not in the slightest related. He was the reigning champion of the Pokémon League of Kanto, and his team of dragon pokémon were truly fearsome to behold.

"Are you working on the Poison Point case?" he asked, and sounded a little nervous about bringing the case up. "I only ask because the news has reached Kanto, and you know how Lorelai gets about murders."

"I am working on it, yeah, but not a lot to tell you right now. You know how it is," I told him evasively. I would tell him in a heartbeat if I could, but we were so desperate to keep details of the killings out of the press that I needed to be careful what I said and to whom. "It's not that I don't trust you, but... We have to keep this stuff under wraps, Lance, you know how it is," I repeated, hating myself for saying the hollow, meaningless words to someone I cared for, but I had to keep things secret when they were about open cases.

"Elise, don't worry about it, I understand! Sometimes, we have to just follow the rules and put up with it. You should just consider yourself lucky that I understand these things," he said with an air of someone important about him.

"Lance, to me you'll always be a spotty teenager that babysat for me when I was a kid," I told him and laughed at his stunned silence, waiting for the retort that I knew would come.

"Yes, but what a good babysitter I made! You're still alive, aren't you?" he replied and laughed, seeing the joke in my statement, and I laughed along with him. It felt good to laugh along with my best friend, as if I could pretend for a few minutes that I had a normal, boring job and didn't have to deal with dead people every day. "What's up? You don't seem very happy, Elise."

"I'm okay, it's just this case is giving me a headache," I confided, rubbing my eyes. "Every time I think I've got to the bottom of it, I find something new that totally throws me off course."

"Aren't you used to that by now?" he teased, trying to lighten my mood. "Every time you think you've got to _my _ bottom I throw you off course!" I laughed, and he laughed back.

"Believe me, I have no desire to see or find your bottom," I replied with a stupid smile on my face, then checked my watch. "Lance, I have to go to the laboratory and do some analysis on some stuff Marcus sent over. I'll call you tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay, I know when I'm not wanted," he told me, pretending to sound hurt. "Take care of yourself, Elise," he finished, and the phone went dead. I needed to find friends who had better phone manners, I thought with another smile as I shut my computer down and polished off my coffee.

_Isn't that cold by now? _I smirked at Gardevoir, and she shook her head in disbelief. _Humans really are disgusting._

"Cold coffee tastes horrible, but it has the same caffeine level as hot coffee, so I'm happy," I told her, brushing past her to wash my plate and cup up and leaving it to dry. I opened the drawer beside the oven and pulled my six pokéballs out, returning each of my pokémon to their respective balls. I never went anywhere without all six of them safely in my bag, and when I was feeling really paranoid, I would keep Gardevoir out of her ball as a little extra protection.

I packed my day to day belongings into my bag and, with a hurried check of my reflection, left the apartment with a spring in my step, thinking about the work I was going to do at the lab. I turned the radio on my Pokétech on to my favourite station, and hummed along with the popular song playing as I retrieved my bike from the bike storage on the ground floor. Waving at one of my neighbours, who waved back, I hopped onto my bike, pulled some sunglasses over my eyes at the bright sunshine outside.

I coasted down the rest of the slope to the crossroads, still humming and singing along to the music and waving at people I recognised. Sunshine could never fail to raise my spirits, and as I pulled into my laboratory a few minutes later, I had a spring in my step. It was a perk to working in such a small town that it only took me a few minutes to get to the lab, whereas in Sunnyshore it could take me closer to ten or fifteen minutes of cycling on the solar road as long as the traffic was quiet.

I had a spring in my step as I swiped my card into the card reader and the door swung open automatically to the cool, air conditioned laboratory. The small building contained a main lab, toilets, a small kitchen and a small office area, but was very well equipped with the latest machinery. I checked the in box, and found the small, sealed bag which contained the mysterious trace evidence from the victim's wrists.

I suited up, ensuring there was not a scrap of hair or skin on show, then opened the bag and removed the trace from the bag with tweezers and put it in a small centrifuge tube. I added some enzymes to break the trace down, then put it into the centrifuge with a counter-balance and set it to spin for ten minutes. It was a long and drawn out process, but once I had the results in my hand, I knew it would be worth the wait.

In the mean time, I started up the mass spectrometer, a machine that could read the chemical composition of a sample and tell you what it was and where it came from. I calibrated it, and a little before I finished, the centrifuge was done. I removed the sample and inserted it into the mass spectrometer and set the machine to run.

It didn't take long until I had a result, and the printer suddenly starting up made me jump. I whipped the sheet out of the paper tray and peered at it critically, smiling a little when I saw that Marcus was right. The trace had come from one of Bulbasaur's line, a vine from a vine whip attack, in fact. Bulbasaur's were fairly uncommon, and the combination of a Bulbasaur and a Nidoran would be even less common. It was a lead, a weak lead, but a lead that filled me with hope.

When the phone began to ring, I answered it with a big beaming smile. "Hello, Eterna Forensics Laboratory?"

"Elise, glad to catch you at work," Officer Jenny said, and I could hear that my jovial mood was not infectious. "There's another body, only this time, he's still alive."

Just for reference, so you guys know what I'm on about:

Centrifuge Tube - .

Centrifuge - ./fankhauser/Labs/Genetics/DNA_Isolation/DNA_Isolation_jpg/05_centrifuge_

Mass Spectrometer - ..

Mass Spectrometer Read-Out - ./Quizzes/images/mass_spectrometry_


	3. Chapter 3

Officer Jenny didn't bother with buzzing the bell to be let into the laboratory; instead, she had her Luxray zap the small electronic control pad, and the door fell loose in its hinges. "You could have knocked," I said, not looking up from the microscope I was peering down. She huffed and took the nearest stool, crossing her arms glaring at nothing in particular.

"Did you not hear me on the phone? We have to get to the hospital, right away! We have to question the witness, collect evidence, you know, do our jobs!" I glanced over at her, and took in her balled fists and red cheeks with a feeling of guilt. "ELISE!" she bellowed so loudly that my hand jerked on the focus knob and I shattered the slide.

"He's dead, Jenny; they called just before you got here," I replied calmly, removing the broken slide gingerly to not cut my fingers and rescuing the small hair sample from the cover slip, before tossing the slide and the cover slip into the disinfectant.

"Thanks for telling me," she sniffed and took her seat again, sounding dejected, and stayed in silence as she calmed down. "Anything good?" she asked with guilt at exploding plain in her voice as I added water to the new slide, laid the hair sample into it and then added a new cover slip.

"No, I just thought I'd see if there was anything interesting on the hair of the victim. Sometimes, you can see bands of colour within the hair which can be tested for drugs or exposure to certain chemicals," I explained, focussing the microscope carefully, then moving the slide around to look at the whole length of the hair. "This guy hasn't even taken any painkillers in the last few months, let alone being around something lethal."

"How do you know how old the sample is?" Jenny asked me, getting up to have a look. I stepped aside to allow her space to view the sample, and considered my answer.

"Hair grows at a rate of around half an inch per month. Our hair sample is a little over three inches, suggesting that it's been around six months since it was last cut, which gives us a six month window of exposure, and so far, nothing," I told her, then retrieved another sample and swapped them under the microscope. "Though if you look at this one," I started, and she moved aside to let me focus the microscope, "You can see a deep band of discolouration. I checked the colour, and according to the book, that type of discolouration is usually attributed to a massive intake of drugs, most commonly pain killers."

"You mean, he tried to take an overdose?" she asked me darkly, frowning a little at the intimation.

"No; I checked his medical records, he was beaten up pretty badly on his way home from work at a time that fits pretty well with the discolouration of his hair, and he had his briefcase stolen," I concluded, and gave her the file. She opened it and leant back on the bench while I tidied my work away and changed out of my lab coat into my black jacket, shivering a little at the cold fabric and fiddling with the collar.

"What was in the briefcase?" Jenny asked as I moved to begin to shut the machinery, knowing the protocol so well I barely needed to watch what I was doing.

"According to his office, there was a couple of prototype pokéballs and a plan for a mobile pokémon storage computer, but none of them were one of a kind or particularly valuable. I mean, they told me that the pokéballs didn't even work!" I replied, and Jenny forced a laugh. Our eyes met for a second and the emotion I had been feeling all day seemed to dart between us. _Helpless. I am helpless to stop them, helpless to save the men, helpless to save anyone..._

"We'll find them," I said, brushing my fears aside with a hand gesture and smiling at her. "What am I going to do with that door?" Jenny glanced at me, and I waggled a finger at her in a teasing way as I found a roll of crime scene tape. "C'mon, let's get to the hospital and see Marcus," I told her, leading the way out of the lab and turning to seal the door with the tape. I knew no one in the quiet town would break the seal into the lab until I could get someone to come and repair the unit Jenny had destroyed. "Did you remember to pack some clothes?" I asked her, and indicated the rucksack strapped to my bike.

"Of course I did," she retorted, and held up a large holdall which she attached in a practised manner to her bicycle handlebars. I laughed and adjusted my handbag so it wouldn't slip down my arm as we cycled before I pulled my bike off its stand and reached into my bag to let Zapdos spread his wings, and he leapt out of his pokéball with a loud cry, almost knocking both of us off our feet with the up draft from his great wings.

"Do you trust him to come back?" Jenny asked, putting her hand over her eyes to dim the light from the setting sun. I checked my pokétech for the time, and was shocked to find that it was nearing six o'clock.

"If he wants to be fed, particularly the rare candy I have in my bag, he'll come back," I told her, leaping onto my bike and slapping the Officer on the arm. "Race ya!" I laughed, pushing off from the kerb and hurtling down the road away from her. She laughed and pedalled off in pursuit, though I had the advantage of longer legs and a small head start, but after a few minutes I slowed up and let her catch up so we could talk as we coasted around the large statue of the pokémon of Sinnoh, Dialga and Palkia.

I glanced up at the statues in a little awe; they were truly beautiful. They showed the two great pokémon locked in fierce battle, with Dialga, ruler of Time, rearing over Palkia, ruler of Space, Palkia's neck in Dialga's mighty jaws. However, though after a cursory glance one would think Dialga had the upper hand, you could see that Palkia had one of Dialga's front legs gripped in its sharp claws. I loved the statue, and often couldn't help but stare at the immense statue.

"You like the statue?" Jenny asked me, and I nodded and corrected the wobble my bike had gained.

"I think it's beautiful," I agreed, and she laughed. "What?"

"You know, people say that Dialga was what that Team Galactic were after a few years ago," she said, and I raised my eyebrows.

"Are you serious? Capturing the pokémon that keeps time flowing as it should?" I laughed, and she shrugged and gave me a look that told me she was serious. "You're deadly serious, aren't you?"

"Completely! There was this kid who disbanded them, and he said he'd met Dialga and Palkia, as well as Mespirit, Uxie and Azelf, up the top of Mount Coronet," she told me, and I couldn't help the disbelief on my face. She sighed and shook her head, admitting defeat in converting me to her folklore. I was a scientist; if I could see it, and touch it, then it was real. I even struggled to believe in Arceus, the God of pokémon that completed the whole world and everything in it. For me, science won over spirituality, and I had seen and helped to sequence Mew's DNA, and she was the origin of all pokémon.

"Sorry Jen, but unless I can see it, stick it in a machine and know it's real, then I can believe it," I told her, and she giggled a little then sighed again. Though she would never admit it, she did believe in Arceus and it was this faith that let her deal with some of the horrible things we saw every day. "Anyway, is it just me or is the perpetrator speeding up on the number of abductions?"

"Always got your head on work, right Elise?" Jenny replied with a laugh in her voice, then she took a breath before adding, "It certainly seems that way to me. We've gone from one a week, to two, and now four this week, and it's only Thursday." I did the maths in my head, figuring that we could have potentially two more bodies before Sunday. It was not a happy thought as we came up on the entrance to Mount Coronet, and I pulled up hard in the sandy earth and whistled as loudly as I could, covering my face as Zapdos landed in a flurry of sand on the floor beside me. I fumbled one-handed in my bag and fetched his pokéball out and returned him to it, not wanting to risk him getting lost in Mount Coronet.

"Luxray, go!" I heard Jenny shout, and I turned to see the blue lion pokémon standing beside her, her hand on it's shoulder. I smiled and let Swampert out of his red and white ball and dismounted my bike. It wasn't safe to ride through Mount Coronet, due to the large number of pokémon and uneven ground that was rife there, so we pushed our bikes along and entered the inky blackness of the cave. "Luxray, use flash so we can see." I covered my eyes for a moment to safe being half-blinded by the bright flash Luxray loosed, then peeled my hand away from my eyes and was greeted by the familiar surroundings of the cave.

"It never changes in here, does it?" I said, my voice echoing loudly around us as we wove through the maze of boulders that blocked our path. It was still early enough that Zubat and Golbat were resting high above our heads, and we only had to dodge around Geodude and Graveler that hurried from our path. It did not stop the two campers that came around the corner and, spotting us, drew their pokéballs.

"I am Officer Jenny of Eterna City, drop your pokéballs," she called, but I laid my hand on her arm and shook my head. I was in the mood for a battle, because it had been far too long.

"I challenge you to a double battle," I called, and the two campers agreed and told me their names were Darren and Suzi, and their threw their pokéballs and I grinned a little too wide when I was met by a Sandslash and a Prinlup. "Swampert, show them how it's done," I told him, and he stepped forwards to stand level with Jenny's Luxray.

"Sandslash, use slash!" Darren yelled, but my Swampert was too quick, and he shot a fast beam of bubbles from his mouth and his Sandslash in the centre of the chest. The super-effective attack knocked Sandslash out, and Darren returned it to it's pokéball with an air of defeat. He tossed the next ball and a Vileplume leapt out. He obviously misjudged my Swampert, who was too quick once again and loosed a vicious ice beam attack, which again was super effective against the grass-type Vileplume. I knew from the beginning that I would win, just due to my experience, but it had been fun nonetheless, and I shook Darren's hand amicably and telling him that all he needed was a little more training.

Meanwhile, Officer Jenny had dispatched the Prinlup and was working on Suzi's Gastrodon, which mean that Jenny was at a disadvantage. Her electric type attacks were not touching the part-ground Gastrodon, and I felt a little powerless to help her as her Luxray fell to a Mud Bomb attack. I darted forwards and grabbed Luxray, dragging him to safety while Jenny considered her options and tossed a ball which contained her Tangela, a little bundle of weeds with red shoes sticking out the bottom. "Tangela! Use Razor Leaf!" Jenny cried, and Tangela obeyed without a hitch, bringing the mighty Gastrodon down.

I sprayed Luxray with a spare Hyper Potion that was in my bag as Jenny said her farewells to the two campers, ensuring to give me the full brunt of her 'I am _not_ impressed' glare. "What? Tell me you didn't enjoy that," I told her with a laugh, stroking Luxray's fur gently while he recovered from his faint.

"I did, but Luxray could have been seriously hurt," she grumbled at me, and I threw the empty spray bottle of Super Potion at her, which she caught deftly and shook her head like she was scolding a child.

"But he's not, Jenny – look, he's fine," I retorted, and the blue lion stood up and shook himself all over. I crawled back a step when I spotted the sparks jumping along his fur, not wanting to meet the same end as the man who had found my hatchling Zapdos. Jenny tutted at me and I ignored her as I stood back up and patted my leg to summon Swampert back to me. His size alone meant that he waddled a little when he walked, but he had the biggest smile on his face I had seen in a long time, and I made sure to make a suitably big fuss of him before we set off again.

The journey seemed through the mountain came to an end remarkably quickly, and we emerged to see a beautiful pink sunset stretched out before us as we returned our pokémon to their pokéballs and coasted down the hill to Celestic Town, where we would be staying before our journey to Veilstone City and the regions hospital.


	4. Chapter 4

I stared at the ceiling, telling myself that if I fell asleep _now,_ I'd get 7 hours, fourteen minutes and thirty seconds sleep. Now, twenty seconds sleep. "Damn stupid case," I muttered, standing up from the uncomfortable hotel bed and turning the light on.

_Hey, some of us are trying to sleep here!_ I turned and stuck my tongue out at Gardevoir, heading for my rucksack and pulling out a book before settling beside the floor lamp and turning the main light off to keep her, and the other Pokémon, quiet. I started looking through the book about identifying pokémon footprints, staring at the pictures and hardly seeing them, rereading sentences a few times to really understand their meaning.

Bored, I got up, grabbed Gardevoir by the arm and headed outside the little hotel to wander around the quiet little town. The wind whistled through, down the gulley over the river and past me to whip around Mount Coronet's snowy peak, and made me pull the collar of my jacket up against it. I made my way down the dip and into the ruins, glad to be out of the wind as I slipped my jacket off.

_It's creepy in here in the dark._ I looked at Gardevoir and smiled.

"You know the dark has never bothered me," I replied, finding the small torch I had in my jacket pocket and pressing the button on the end to shoot the thin beam of light out into the darkness. The cavern was small enough that I could see the far wall dimly in the gloom, and I headed towards it to look at the carvings in the back wall stone.

The carvings depicted the story of Uxie, Azelf and Mespirit, the so-called 'Mirage' pokémon of the three lakes of Sinnoh. I'd seen it before – I even had a framed photograph of the carving on my desk at home, along side the photograph of the grand Dialga and Palkia statue near to Eterna City, and yet, standing here in front of the carving, I felt awed by it. "It's beautiful, don't you think?"

_It looks like a wall with a carving Venusaur could have done._ I tutted at Gardevoir, and she crossed her arms and turned her back to me to display her displeasure at my tutting. _You've got company_, she told me, and I turned and flashed the torch down the cavern.

"If you were trying to blind me, you have succeeded," came the female voice back, and Gardevoir stepped protectively in front of me. I could hear whoever it was moving through the cavern, and the hairs on the back of my neck and the tops of my arms stood to attention as adrenaline flooded my body. "There's a light switch to the right of the carving, would you care to turn it on?" I blushed and fumbled my way to the wall, feeling the rough surface until I came across a switch, which I flicked on. I turned to see who had disturbed my midnight wanderings, and found myself looking at Cynthia, the pokémon league champion of many years. "I heard you were around, and the receptionist at the hotel said you'd gone for a walk."

"Yeah, I couldn't sleep, but I am also not dressed for entertaining, I'm afraid," I apologised, indicating the pyjamas I had on, complete with Igglybuff designs and balloons. Cynthia laughed, and I couldn't help but smile at the ridiculousness of the situation. "What brings you back to Celestic Town?"

"My Grandmother has fallen ill, sadly," Cynthia replied, looking downcast for a moment, before her face changed with a smile. "It's been too long, Elise. Last time I saw you, you were going to the University of Johto to study, and I was staying behind to continue my studies into the mythology of Sinnoh." She had a point. We had gone to trainer school together and had been friends, staying with one another's family during the summer holidays because she lived in Celestic Town and I came from Floarama Town. Once, my parent's took us both to Kanto where my maternal Grandparents lived, and I finally got to introduce Cynthia to the 'cool boy who babysits me when I stay with Grandad and Nan', Lance. We'd promised to stay in touch, and for the first few years, as we travelled around Sinnoh, Kanto, Johto and Hoenn, battling leagues as we went along, we did manage to write often. It had all petered out, like many things do, when I had gone so far away to do my degree.

"It really has been too long – I heard about your success with the league, good on you," I congratulated, and she went pink and giggled. "How's that Feebas I traded you getting along?" She opened her messenger bag and enlarged her pokéball before pressing the button on the front and releasing the enormous Milotic from the ball, who curled around Cynthia and shook her graceful head. "Wow," I said, looking up at the huge pokémon in awe at her immense size, stepping back a little to fully see all of her.

"Wow, indeed, but look at your Ralts! She's grown into a beautiful Gardevoir," Cynthia cooed back, looking Gardevoir up and down with an enthusiastic smile.

_Well done, Captain Obvious_. I gave Gardevoir a look. _Oh, please, this frantic fan-girling it getting a little much. Ask her what she knows about the murders, and do your job._ She had a point, though I was not about to tell the stubborn pokémon that. Instead, I turned back to Cynthia, and she saw the look on my face before returning Milotic to her pokéball.

"Cynthia, what do you know about these murders? I mean, the ones of the researchers?" I asked her, and her face betrayed how concerned she was about them.

"I don't know very much, but I remember a couple of months ago, I helped this kid out with Team Galactic. I didn't like what they were saying, if that doesn't sound too vague. Though my memory is a little sketchy, I remember that they were talking about using the Mirage pokémon and Dialga and Palkia to create a new world – at least, that's what the kid told me. But, they went around stealing trainer's pokémon before evolving them and looking into the power they gave off. They found that if the pokémon were forced to evolve, then the power they gave off was almost double what it was if they evolved naturally," Cynthia explained, and I nodded enthusiastically, trying to remember every detail of what she told me for later use.

"I think I heard about this, but third or fourth hand," I admitted, then gathered my thoughts and formulated a question. "Do you think Team Galactic could be behind these deaths?" Cynthia tried to smile, but failed and shrugged, turning away from me.

"I don't see any reason why they couldn't be behind them. I mean, if they want pokémon and technology, what better group to target than researchers? They could kill two Starly with one stone, if you'll pardon the term of phrase," she replied, then looked troubled. "But Team Galactic never really had the brains to keep this kind of thing hidden for so long, especially with someone like you on their tail."

"Thanks, I think! But I agree, they don't have the brains or the resources to commit crimes like this, which is one of the things that most bothers me about this case. It's too perfect, you know?" I asked her, and she laughed and ran her fingers through her hair in a practised mannerism. "I just don't know where to go next, what to look at. I'm en route with the Eterna Officer Jenny to the Veilstone hospital to look over the victim, but the _modus operandi _suggests that there could be up to two more bodies by the time we get back to Eterna in three days time, and that's just too many bodies on the ground for my liking."

"You always were a worrier, Elise. I could point you in the right direction for someone to help you get back to Eterna quicker?"

"You know I hate flying, or else I'd make Zapdos carry us both back," I said, and she laughed in response.

"Yes, I remember. How is that working out, by the way? I've heard Zapdos can be rather difficult to raise and control," she asked me. If anyone else doubted my skills as a trainer, I would have been rather offended, but Cynthia only ever did it to check that I was really okay.

"It's fun, he's very quick to learn and he gets on well with the rest of them, even Miss Happy-Cheery over there," I replied, indicating Gardevoir who crossed her arms and turned her back on me.

_Speak for yourself, Miss I-Drink-Cold-Coffee. _I smiled, and Cynthia laughed.

"You two still communicate telepathically, then," she stated, and I laughed back.

"When she is in the mood, yes," I told her, and checked my watch, a little surprised to find that it was nearly 2 o'clock in the morning. "Oh, look at the time! I should be getting back if I'm to get any sleep before Jenny wakes me up at 8."

"And I should hurry and see my Grandmother to ensure I too get some sleep," she replied, then stepped forwards and hugged me. "It's good to see you, Elise," she said, and I returned the hug uncomfortably.

"You, too, Cynthia, I hope your Grandmother is alright," I told her, before breaking the hug and heading for the exit of the cavern. "Are you coming?" I called.

"No, I think I'll take a moment down here, first, but you go on ahead, I'll catch you later, hopefully," Cynthia called back, and the last I saw of her was her stepping close to the carving and laying her hands on it in silent prayer. As we headed through the foyer of the hotel, I hoped that her Grandmother would be okay, because the two were incredibly close after Cynthia's mother died.

_You should pop in and see them before we leave. _I glanced at Gardevoir as I produced the room key from my pyjamas' pocket and unlocked the door, then held the door for her before stepping in myself and locking the door behind me.

"I might, but it depends what happens between now and then. We might have to hurry back to Eterna, or on to Veilstone, so we'll see," I replied out loud, stepping carefully around Venusaur and jumping onto the bed. "Goodnight, all," I called, pulling the duvet over my shoulders and closing my eyes to try and get some sleep.

*

"I cannot believe that you went wandering around the town in the middle of the night with a murderer on the loose!" Jenny scolded shrilly as we cycled across the bridge that crossed the River Celeste on our way to Veilstone City Hospital.

"The murderer is likely to be in Eterna, firstly, and secondly, I was protected well enough. Celestic Town is a safe place, Jenny," I replied, dodging a pot hole in the road and almost mounting the grass that stood at the sides of the road.

"But, still, it was irresponsible and gives off the wrong image to the public. We've put out publications warning people not to go wandering off in the dark by themselves, and here's our chief SOCO out wandering in the dark by herself," she chided, and I shrugged.

"I found out something interesting, though, if you can come down off your high horse for long enough to listen to me," I told her snappily, wanting to convey how much I disliked being told off like a naughty school child. She stayed silent, so I took a chance and told her what I had heard from Cynthia.

"So she agrees with you that Galactic couldn't do this alone, if they are behind the killings. Who else would do something like this? It's a bit too international to be one of the other well known gangs, don't you think?" I blinked at her questions and considered my answer for a few seconds.

"Jenny, I think we need to bring in some officers from other regions, specifically James from Saffron City in Kanto, Daniel from Blackthorne City in Johto and Annemarie from Mossdeep in Hoenn, because they've got the most experience in these things," I told her, and she nodded in understanding. "I'm scared that what we're poking and prodding at is much bigger than we can handle."

"Me, too," she replied as we coasted into Veilstone City to begin heading for the hospital.


	5. Chapter 5

I tapped the desk impatiently with my fingertips, watching the screen-saver on the computer in the autopsy room. Marcus was preparing the body, and he liked to collect the evidence on his own as a personal quirk (that and the fact that he listened to cheesey-pop tunes while he was autopsying a body). "Elise, that is incredibly annoying."

I physically jumped when Jenny spoke, and she laughed. "Sorry, I'm nervous about what we will or wont find," I explained evasively, and she opened her mouth for a comeback before thinking better of it and going back to looking at the posters on the wall of gross dissections of various pieces of human anatomy. "Why are you staring so intently at the dissection of the heart? Should I be worried?"

"I find the human body a fascinating thing," Jenny replied absently, tracing the route that blood takes through the heart with her finger. I shrugged and continued tapping out a rhythm on the desk and idly watching the screen-saver, and when Marcus came through the door holding two pairs of gloves and two face masks, handing them to us.

"If you feel faint or unwell, please step out of the room, because the body on my table is the only body I will deal with in that room," he warned, and I nodded as I gloved up deftly before helping Jenny with hers. "That being said, I've got a few things to show you on the outside of the body before we begin making cuts, so follow me," he concluded, then headed out of the door he had come in by and we followed obediently.

"Now, notice the ligature marks around his wrists," he said, indicating the marks around his wrists and handing me a small, sealed evidence bag containing a tiny green speck. "Looks the same under the microscope as the trace from the last body, but you'll need to verify that under a mass spec. On this body, we've got definite evidence to suggest he was bound by the ankles, too. And he put up quite a struggle against his abduction," Marcus said, indicating the relevant points on the body and I noted down what I saw diligently.

"He saw his death coming, right?" I asked, and Marcus shrugged. "C'mon, doc, I need a straight answer," I told him, and he considered his answer for a few moments.

"It's my professional opinion that this man knew exactly what was going to happen to him, yes," Marcus told us, and Jenny shot me a look that I knew mirrored what was on my face. "He had a very painful death, but I'm ruling a cause of death of Nidoran poisoning, to try and convince his family that he died quickly."

"Isn't that illegal?" Jenny asked, and Marcus and I exchanged a look.

"In the interest of protecting his widow and children from the truth, a white lie on the death certificate is worth doing. And anyway, ultimately his death _was_ caused by Nidoran poisoning, I just think he could have survived longer had he not been tortured," Marcus replied, and Jenny nodded. I was about to open my mouth and ask a question when my cell phone rang, blaring out an obnoxious noise until I silenced it and headed for the corridor.

"Hello?" I asked as I answered the phone. There was silence, just the sound of heavy breathing on the other end of the phone. "Who is this?" I asked and pulled the phone away from my ear to look at the screen and find a number, seeing that it was 'Unlisted'. "Whose there?" The breathing paused, and I was certain I heard breathy laughter as I felt sick to my stomach with fear. "This isn't funny, now tell me who the hell this is dammit!" I shouted, and heard that creepy laughter again before the phone went dead in my hands and I slipped back against the wall and stared at the electronic piece of equipment.

"Elise? Are you okay?" Jenny asked me and I nodded slowly, wrenching my gaze away from my phone and looking at her wide-eyed.

"Someone just prank called me, and it was just... So weird, it was like they were mocking me," I told her and she nodded understandingly, still looking concerned for me. "They were laughing at me, but it wasn't a proper laugh, like they were trying to be quiet or something," I stated, trying to wrack my brain to remember any single point about the person who phoned me.

"We should check your phone records and trace the call, find out who it was," she said practically, and I nodded in agreement.

"Except they called from an unlisted cell number, so it's been destroyed already and so any trace will be useless because the phone won't exist any more. I'm fine just a little freaked out and-" I was cut off by my phone ringing again, making us both jump. I took a deep breath and answered the phone.

"Where are you, Elise?" My boss, Rob Dix, almost screamed down the phone at me.

"I'm in Veilstone, why? You knew that, I put all the right information out there," I replied, but had a growing feeling of dread from how stressed the normally laid-back Rob was behaving.

"Your lab has been ransacked, get back to Eterna right now. I don't care how, but hurry up," he said venomously then hung up.

"Damn," I hissed under my breath, and Jenny gave me a quizzical look. "I'm going to have to get over my fear of flying – we need to get back to Eterna right now, the lab has been broken into." She gasped theatrically and I sniggered, dodging a slap on the arm from her. "C'mon, let's go pack and I'll ask Cynthia for some help with the whole 'flying' thing."

*

I remember why I hate flying. Sitting on a pokémon's back, looking at the ground a thousand miles below you, and as if that isn't bad enough, you then have to put up with landing, that terrifying moment between flying and walking. I fell off of Cynthia's Staraptor and headed for the nearest bin to rid myself of my lunch.

"I never realized you hated flying _that_ much," Cynthia said as she and Jenny stood and watched me with pitying looks on their faces.

"Well you learn something new every day," I replied hoarsely, going in my bag for a bottle of water and downing some to settle my stomach, turning my back to lean against the bin and take a few deep breaths of air.

"I'll get someone to bring your bicycles back as soon as I can. I think Eric is bringing his truck to this side of the region some time this week, but I'll check. Are you sure you're alright?" I nodded slowly and took another sip of the water, ignoring Cynthia's small chuckle at my discomfort.

"I've been waiting for you to get here, how long does it- Wow, are you okay?" I blinked weakly at Rob and he peered at me through his thick glasses.

"I don't like flying," I reiterated and he nodded and turned to thank Cynthia for getting us here in almost one pieces, a phrase I ignored. My stomach was beginning to settle and the world had stopped accelerating, and I took a tentative step towards the lab and was rewarded with not falling over or throwing up again. "How did they break in?"

"Through the door, though there was crime scene tape across the _inside _of the door, which I assume you have a good explanation for," Rob started and I felt blush creep over my cheeks.

"Officer Jenny asked her Luxray to zap the door, and I'd phoned for a repair man but we had to leave to get to Veilstone in time, so I didn't wait around for him to get here. I secured the door with the manual lock and added the crime scene tape for effect; I guess whoever broke in doesn't have much thought for the community, which suggests they aren't locals or they would have been recognised," I said and Rob looked stony for a few moments. "Look, I know I should have waited, but we needed to get to the autopsy."

"Would you take the same course of action again?" he asked me and I nodded, feeling like I was on the witness bench and being questioned in court. "If you would do it again, then it's okay, Elise. It doesn't look like anything has been taken, but the mass spectrometer has been smashed up, along with the PCR and the liquid gas spectrometer. We did find this, though," he concluded and handed me a small evidence bag which contained a cotton swab. I raised it to my face and peered at the cotton end of the swab and then smiled.

"Pink means blood, so whoever it was cut themselves at the scene," I said and he nodded and smiled. "I don't have a lab, though."

"We're setting up a temporary laboratory at the trainer's school in Jubilife City because they are on summer holidays at the moment and the building is standing empty, so take the first bus down there that you can. We've rented you a small apartment in the Jubilife Condominiums under your mother's name, because we don't want what happened here to repeat on your apartment," he told me, and I barely heard; his words had struck a chord with me, and I was running down the road towards the apartment building before he could really finish speaking. I hit the front door with my hands out and swiped my key-card through the reader and shoved the door. I took the stairs two at a time and paused for a moment outside by apartment, counting to ten as I released Swampert from his pokéball. I could see that the door was slightly ajar, and once Swampert was settled on all four feet, I pulled a pair of latex gloves from my pocket and slipped them on my hands before gingerly pushing the door open.

I could hear someone moving around deep in the apartment and goosebumps prickled up my skin as I stepped forwards carefully, pushing the door back to how it was quietly. Swampert followed me as I went to the kitchen, trying to rack my brain to think of something to do and mentally looking through the drawers of the apartment. I pulled the one beside the cooker open and helped myself to a large cooking knife, holding the handle in my hand and laying the blade's flat side against my forearm to conceal the weapon. Whoever was in here was moving towards me, talking loudly and hurriedly into either a mobile phone or a walkie-talkie and they had a pokémon with them, judging from the sound of footprints behind them.

I pressed myself against the work surface and hoped they wouldn't see me, but that I would get a good look at them. I did get a good look at them, but they got an equally good look at me. "Oi!" they shouted and I jumped and tried to take in everything about them. It was a tall man, well over my six-foot tall frame, with hair the colour of straw tucked into a neat ponytail that fell to his shoulders. He was dressed in a plain black boiler-suit and had dark sunglasses on that concealed his eyes perfectly, but I was hit with the idea that he had blue eyes to go with the straw-coloured hair and the pale skin. My attention was soon drawn from him to the Skuntank that leapt to his side, it's tail bristling and it's lips raised to bear it's teeth at me. I shuddered a little but stepped around the centre island to face them, forcing them against the wall that lead to the living room but giving myself and Swampert enough space to manoeuvre.

"Swampert, use Protect," I told him, considering my opponent carefully. I needed to taunt him into showing me exactly what moves his pokémon had without allowing him to knock Swampert out. The man fell for my little game and pointed at Swampert, shouting;

"Skuntank, use Bite!"

"Swampert, dodge left then hit it with Bubblebeam," I called out, and Swampert flung himself to the left and was barely grazed by the Skuntanks inaccurate assault. Swampert righted himself and shot a stream of bubbles at the Skuntank, who took them in the face and coughed and spluttered as it landed from it's attack. "Use Protect again then get ready to move!"

"Skuntank, use Toxic and aim for it's face!" Swampert had barely got the Protect screen up when the poison-type attack bounced off it, and I thought to myself how close that could have been. My lapse in concentration gave my opponent the upper hand as he ordered his pokémon. "Use Feint then Nightslash!"

"Swampert, aim left and hit it with Rollout!" I cried, hoping that my Swampert would be quicker than the Skuntank. I was wrong, and the Nightslash attack rendered him unable to battle, laying on his side in the middle of my livingroom. I considered my options for a moment; Swampert could have saved me, due to his part-Ground typing, but I would have brought the whole building down with one single Earthquake or Fissure. My next-best bet would be Zangoose who would be quicker than the heavy Skuntank, and he leapt from his pokéball and stood defensively in front of me. "Zangoose, Focus Punch right onto it's ugly face," I hissed, and Zangoose began storing energy after taking cover behind the island.

"Skuntank, use Slash!" he shouted, but Zangoose was quicker. His punch landed into the Skuntanks face and it fell to the side, twitching in shock at the attack. "Get up!" the trainer shouted, and Skuntank barely batted an eye in response. "Get up you useless creature!" Still the Skuntank didn't move, and I had to take a deep breath to prevent making a comment.

"Need a potion?" I asked. My self-control is _far _from perfect, what can I say? He sneered at me and chose another pokéball, almost whooping in triumph as he saw my face fell when I took in his released pokémon; a Crobat. I gave him a look, returned Zangoose and let Gardevoir out.

_I thought you'd leave me in there all day_. She said in my head and I smiled and shook my head. "Gardevoir, use Calm Mind them Psychic!"

"Crobat, Protect!" The Calm Mind lasted long enough to wear the Protect barrier out, and Gardevoir attacked at full force with her Psychic powers. Her boosted attack knocked the Poison-type Crobat out instantly, and the trainer returned both his pokémon to their respective balls with a huff of anger. He had one more pokéball, which he tossed in the air and it released it's inhabitant to the floor. The Glameow launched nearly immediately into a Fury Swipes attack, but I had second guessed him and released Zangoose who covered his face protectively.

"Zangoose, use Slash!" I shouted, my mind so into the battle that I had forgotten that Jenny and Rob would be wondering about me. Zangoose responded immediately, leaping forwards and slashing the Glameow across the chest with his claws and drawing blood. "Now use Ice Beam!" I called and he did so, freezing the little cat solid. I'd taught it to him by accident, but it had got us out of tighter scrapes that this and this just proved it. The trainer took a moment to shout abuse at me before the front door flew open and Jenny leapt into the room and placed handcuffs on the trainer, reading him his rights before turning to me.

"Are you okay?" she asked and I nodded, about to speak when Nurse Joy arrived with an emergancy medical kit in her hand to begin treating the injured pokémon, starting with my Swampert. She applied bandages to the graze on his side before placing a Max Revive on his tongue to bring him around. I turned my face to the man who had broken into my apartment and attacked me and my pokémon.

"Who the hell are you?" I shouted at him, traversing the room and grabbing him by the front of his boiler suit to push him up against the wall, feeling anger pour through my body as I ripped the sunglasses off his smug face. I looked him in the eye finally and inhaled sharply as I pulled the straw-coloured ponytail off his head to show the pale-blue hair underneath. "Cyrus O'Dell, leader of Team Galactic," I said quietly and stepped back from him, looking between the disguise and the man before me. "You have some serious explaining to do."


	6. Chapter 6

The police station in Jubilife was buzzing with the news of the battle and the revelation of the arrest, and I found myself plied with cups of coffee and pats on the back for a job well done. If it wasn't for the fact that Swampert was laid up in the Poké Centre having the wounds on his side treated, I would have agreed that I'd done a good job. Now, I felt angry at the man who was sitting in the interrogation room, looking like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth with his brief sitting beside him and whispering to him. Cyrus' eyes were on the one-way glass where I was standing, my hands shaking, still in shock from the surprise battle and the fact that my belongings had been so violated.

Jenny and her supervisor, Lieutenant Clive Jee, entered the room and sat down opposite him, turning the digital video recorder and saying the necessary jargon into the microphone. "Cyrus O'Dell, you are charged with breaking and entering, theft, assault with a Pokémon, and you are under suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder. Your plea will be heard tomorrow morning, and in the meantime, you will spend your time in custody of this police station to be processed. Do you understand?" Clive asked, and I knew the answer before Cyrus answered.

"No comment." I felt anger begin to prickle through me at the nonchalance of his speech, and my left hand balled into a fist.

"What were you doing in Doctor Coleman's apartment today?" Clive asked again, his voice sounding firmer and more angry. I was glad I never interrogated suspects, because I would not have had the restraint that the older Lieutenant had. I got too involved, my superiors' would say, but that was just who I was.

"No comment," Cyrus replied with a sick smile on his face, and my fist tightened until I felt my nails digging into my palm, the anger surging through me at his lack of a comment. "Tell... Doctor Coleman, that I especially like the little pink silky number in the top drawer." Bloody half-circles were forming on my palm from my nails biting into the skin, but I didn't notice. I tried to control my temper, anger obliterating nearly every other thought in my mind except one. I walked to the door that gave entry to the interrogation room, pushed it open and stood in front of the door. "I would especially appreciate a modelling session of your very cute pyjamas. You know the ones, with the Clefairy's on them?"

"Shut up!" I shouted and he laughed at me, leaning back in the chair with his arms crossed. "Don't you dare laugh at me," I growled, and his laughter intensified.

"Or what?" Those were two words I didn't need to hear.

"I'll kill you," I hissed, and his laughter paused. "Watch your back, Cyrus, or else you'll find me on it," I threatened, turning on my heel and walking out. I got into the foyer and collected the two suitcases of belongings I had packed before going out into the street and heading for the pokécentre with a purposeful stride, every step I took wearing down my anger bit by bit. I pushed the door open too forcefully and it hit the wall beside me with a crunch which I ignored as I walked to the counter to ask for Swampert back.

"Would you like me to have a look at your hand?" Nurse Joy asked, and I paused to look at the injured limb. I had four perfect half-circles embedded in my hand, one of which was bleeding noticeably and the others were just red from blood under the skin. I looked at Joy with a smile and nodded as she came around the counter to take me to one of the treatment rooms behind the scenes. She cleaned the cuts with antiseptic pointedly not asking me how I got them, before wrapping a small piece of gauze over them followed by a bandage. It was overkill for such small cuts, but it made me feel better to be taken care of, more secure and in control of myself. "There, I'd take the bandage off in the morning and clean these again." She paused and put a hand on my knee. "Swampert is fine, he's in his pokéball ready to go," she told me and I smiled.

"I'm glad you said that, it makes me feel better," I told her and she stood up and did that little bow they all did before they left the room. I sighed and leant back against the chair, running my fingers through my hair and reminding myself that it needed a wash when I got to Jubilife. I considered my day for a moment; I'd started alright with a nice breakfast, a good trip to the morgue, and it had all gone to hell from there. I laughed bitterly, and Joy gave me a look as she entered with a pokéball in her hand which she threw to me.

"Elise, I think you should talk to someone about your... Shock," she said, skirting around the issue and the incident.

"Joy, I just want a shower and a good nights sleep," I told her, putting the pokéball in my bag and standing up to shake her hand. "Thanks for all your help," I said, meaning every word. She did that little bow again, and I smiled as I walked past her to leave the small pokécentre, spotting a bicycle outside in the bike rack. I went to it and looked it over before strapping my suitcases to the bike and beginning to push it towards the tall condominiums south of the pokécentre.

I locked the bike up and headed for the front desk, hoping that the keys for my new apartment would be waiting for me, and fortunately they were. I traversed the stairs as quickly as I could, heading for the apartment halfway along the first floor corridor and fumbling with the lock. The door flew open under my hands and I fell in, squashed by my suitcase and on my back on the floor. For a moment I lay there, tangled with emotions, then felt the laugh building and before I could help myself, I was laying on the floor, covered in heavy suitcases, and laughing the stress away so hard I was crying.

If it hadn't been for the phone ringing, I don't think I would have moved for a further ten minutes from the floor in my fit of hysteria. As it was, I guessed that it would be either my parents or Lance phoning to check I was alive after hearing of the battle earlier in the day, so I struggled to my feet, closed and locked the front door behind me and answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Elise? Are you okay?" I recognised my mothers voice instantly and felt myself smiling. "Answer me or I'll come down there!"

"Mum, I'm fine, you don't need to come down here and- How did you get this number?" I asked her, simultaneously rummaging through my handbag to release my Pokémon from their respective balls.

"I phoned Rob and told him that if he didn't tell me the number of your new apartment that I would bake him some of my rock cakes," she replied and I giggled. Her rock cakes were true to their description – they were round, often burnt, and required a diamond cutting blade to chisel through them. "Now, tell me, are you really all right?"

"Yes, Mum, I'm really all right," I told her, watching as Swampert hobbled across the floor with a bandage bound tightly across his side. Venusaur nudged at Swampert's side before flopping onto the rub in the middle of the floor with a noisy huffing noise and began snoring with his eyes open. "How's Dad's heart?"

"Oh, you know how he is. He's tired a lot of the time, but the doctor says he could get his valve replaced in the next month or so, so it's getting fixed," she told me briskly, brushing off how worried she felt to make me feel better. "Are you coming home soon, Elise?"

"Maybe; it really depends on this case, how long it takes for me to figure out what the hell is going on here," I lied quickly. She sighed down the phone and I could almost see her shaking her head. "I'm sorry."

"I know. I have to go, it's time for me to hit the hay, I think," she told me and I nodded. "Love you, my scientist girl," she said quietly before hanging the phone up. I put the phone down and set about tidying myself up and unpacking my belongings into the second apartment in as many weeks. I showered and climbed into bed having checked every window and door, falling asleep quicker than I imagined I would.

*~*

The phone ringing woke me up with a jolt, disturbing Gardevoir who had set up camp on the other side of the bed during the night.

_Don't panic, it's only the phone,_ she said and I laughed to break the tension before diving for the handset.

"Hello?" I asked briskly, hoping to cover up the fact that I had only just woken up from the unknown caller.

"I thought you wouldn't answer, so I just let it ring."

"You're so funny, Lance," I replied and he sniggered back at me. "Don't tell me, my mother gave you the number."

"Yes, after she gave me a rock cake. I didn't want to say anything but... Well, they tasted not dissimilar to licking a Geodude," he said meekly with a smirk I could feel down the phone.

"I won't tell her you said that," I replied, then sighed. "You called for a reason, I suppose."

"You mean you don't know?"

"Clearly not," I snapped back, and he took a deep breath.

"There's been a Poison Point case in Viridian Forest here in Kanto." He paused to let the enormity of that revelation sink into my brain, and I found my jaw hanging loosely in my face as I fought to find something, anything, to say.

"What?" I managed to stutter, and he laughed.

"You heard me." I sat down heavily in my chair and took a few calming deep breaths. "You need to come back to Kanto, Elise."

"I was attacked just now, you know," I told him, and I could feel him nodding on the other end of the phone.

"Yeah, I got that. You're going to be called in; I went to the head of international police here and asked him to bring you in as the case manager, so you should be getting the call soon. Hey, at least you're already packed!" he replied brightly, and I risked a small smile.

"I'd rather get the chance to unpack before I come back to Kanto, but you're right, I won't have to repack all my rubbish to get there," I added, and rolled my eyes. "The other line is ringing, speak to you later," I stated, switching to the other line. "Elise Coleman speaking."

"Dr Coleman? Oh, I'm sorry to phone you so late, but I have a request. You might remember me from your time at the academy, but my name is Roger Anterim, I'm-"

"The head of international police in Kanto, yeah, I've heard."

"You have powerful friends," he told me, and I laughed. "I don't see what is so funny."

"I grew up with Lance; he's only a champion to other people. He's a dorky teenager to me," I replied, and Roger risked a small chortle. "Look, I'm not being funny, but I need to get off the damn phone and get some more sleep. Can I come look at dead bodies later?" I asked, praying that he'd give me leniency. There was a pause as he considered that, then he sighed.

"I'll have the body kept on ice for you, and we'll process the scene and seal it off so you can see it for yourself. How soon will you be able to get here?"

"I'll get the 7am ferry, so midday will see me docking in Vermilion, then three hours to cycle to Viridian, so I'll be there around 3pm," I told him, calculating the times in my head.

"That would work fine. Thank you, Elise," he finished softly, then hung up on me. I replaced the handset on the machine and laid back on the bed.

_We're not going back to Kanto, are we? _I looked at Gardevoir and nodded, and she sighed before feigning sleep. I set my alarm and settled back down for a couple more hours of sleep. I had the feeling that I'd need it.


End file.
